Tuesday, December 27, 2005

I've only just now referenced The Colonel's monthly offering, and I note that the version which 'popped up' is his November, 2005, commentaries.

This is, as usual, interesting and instructive. (Here is a comment on his September post, among other less pertinent offerings.)

The single most edifying entry was his Teddy Quote:

The following quotation from Theodore Roosevelt in 1907 is appropriate at this time:

"In the first place we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the man's becoming in very fact an American, and nothing but an American ... There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag, and this excludes the red flag, which symbolizes all wars against liberty and civilization, just as much as it excludes any foreign flag of a nation to which we are hostile ... We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language ... and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people."

via Leon Flancher

I don't always agree with Col. Cooper, but I find myself marching in block-step with his approval of the thoughts of our mutual hero, Theodore Roosevelt.

Any man who wishes to immigrate to this great country is welcome, provided he is determined to become a citizen. He may come to my home, and I will feed him, clothe him, and welcome him as a Brother. Provided only that he embrace this land as his homeland and hold no other state above this nation.

But when a man comes to my home and partakes of the largesse available herein, yet maintains a higher allegiance to his origin, then I label him a curr, and a liar, and a traitor to his espoused convictions.

I have no use for a man who lies, or for a night-slinking backstabber who professes to be a friend even though he knows that he is not my friend.

He may swear allegiance to any state that he wishes, but as long as the country he calls 'home' is not this country, he may not partake of the advantages granted willingly by THIS country.

To do so is not only ignoble, but it is craven and cowardly. We have no need for foreign investment with a hidden agenda.

We have recently seen in France that the immigrants there are all too willing to go on the public dole as 'citizens', but they do not consider themselves citizens. They have no obligation to their adopted country, even though they use their supposed citizenship to their own advantage. At the same time , they destroy public property and undermine the public peace of their supposedly adopted country.

And here, in the land I was born in, I see foreigners who come here for the economic advantage who are unwilling to repay their debt by giving their allegience to their adopted land.

I see immigrants who, even when they go as far as to perform the legal qualifications to become citizens, still hold as their priority a religion which proposes that any perfidy is allowed as long as it permits them to attack their chosen country, even though they have seemingly adopted it as their own.

There are exceptions to this sad turn of events. There are immigrants who come to this country and truly adopt it as their new homeland, as their new homeland has adopted them. Again, I welcome them as Brothers.

Too often, though, we find that we have clasped a serpent to our breast. Is it so remarkable, then, that we resent immigrants who demonstrate no investiture in their new country and may even wish ill of us?

I can find no comfort in their espousal of their rights, when they do not acknowledge their obligations.

I wish them gone. All of them.

There is sufficient dishonesty in this country, among those of us who are legally here. We have no need of self-imported malcontents who suck at the public teat and only bite us in return.